


With You

by forgetmequite



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, Moving In Together, Post-Episode: s02e20 Beside Still Water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 23:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13535049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetmequite/pseuds/forgetmequite
Summary: Magnus and Alec ease back into their relationship, but there are some things they need to discuss.





	With You

**Author's Note:**

> I sat down to write a mostly fluffy piece about an idea that's floated in my head since 2.20 and then the politics bled through.
> 
> Disclaimer: I haven't watched full episodes of the end of S2 since last autumn, so my recollections about the specific plot details are somewhat hazy and I won't vouch for their accuracy.

It wouldn’t be quite the same as it had been before, Magnus knew even as he put his arm around Alec’s waist as they started for home, leaving Hunter’s Moon and the party behind.

It wouldn’t be quite the same, but they both wanted it to _be_ again, and that was more than Magnus had feared in his most private despairing moments.

Raziel had fulfilled a wish, and yet Magnus, his people and the Downworld were still alive, Valentine wasn’t, and Alec was also alive and at his side.

(Alec _couldn’t live without him_ , and Magnus knew Alec had been dramatic with the phrasing but he would hold those words close to his heart nevertheless.)

It wouldn’t be quite the same, but that night as Magnus listened to Alec’s quiet snores that he’d missed more than he’d ever admit, he knew it would become something stronger. More solid. Better.

Still, they were a little tentative with each other, easing back into their relationship as if their fight (Magnus would gladly embrace the euphemism) had been longer than the few days it had been in reality. It made sense. Magnus knew for a fact that he'd had decades during which he’d felt less than he had during those days, and he was sure Alec shared the sentiment even if it wasn’t literally true for him. There was something changed about Alec, he admitted as much, a grim determination to never let something like that happen again and increased certainty about his need to lead for change. Magnus had not directly asked about Alec’s feelings about the Clave, but he could feel a shift there, anyway.

As for Magnus, it was not the first apocalypse that had bowed out of his way, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last, either. He had done what he had done, and maybe in hindsight he could point to things he might have done differently, decisions he should have done with a cooler head and friends whose advice he could have heeded more, but in the end Magnus could live with all of his choices. He would never apologise for doing everything in his power for the protection of his people.

For that matter, Alec hadn’t asked him to. He’d made it clear he understood that whatever else they were, they were also leaders with the related responsibilities. Magnus couldn’t put into words how good it felt to have their political goals align again.

Maybe it was implied in the words he could say.

“Please tell me you’ll have time to linger in the morning,” he said, fingers idly combing through the hair on Alec’s chest.

Alec blinked. “Do you?”

Magnus rested his head on Alec’s shoulder, knowing his face was a picture of regret. “I have to be in Chicago at eight.”

Alec smiled, tired but happy. “We could always set the alarm for six.”

He hated early mornings, and Alec did too, but Magnus had a full day ahead of him, and he’d take what he’d get.

“The things I do for you,” he said in his most melodramatic voice, but it was worth it to feel Alec’s laughter vibrate through his body.

 

He thought maybe he woke up during the night to Alec’s ringtone and a murmured conversation, but he wasn’t quite sure.

Still, when he woke up, he had a very vivid voice memory of Alec saying, “No, Izzy, I’m okay, I’m at the loft” in his head.

 

His last meeting of the day ran a little longer than he’d expected, and he was surprised to find the loft empty on his return.

Perhaps Alec had suffered the same fate, he thought as he off-handedly texted, _Will you be long & Nepalese or Ethiopian for dinner?_

At any rate, he didn’t have to wait for long for a reply.

_There in 30 mins? Either works, I can pick it up if you order._

Twenty-five minutes later, Alec knocked on the door with their usual order in hand.

“Long day?” Magnus asked.

Alec relaxed into Magnus’s embrace, his lips chapped against Magnus’s cheek. “Aren’t they all?”

 

All their days might be long, but at least every once in a while, they caught a leisurely morning. Magnus was the first to leave the bed in search of breakfast, and he was waiting for his tea to cool down to drinking temperature when Alec walked into the kitchen, looking oddly serious for someone without socks on and his shirt only half buttoned.

“Magnus, do I live here?”

Magnus blinked, caught completely off-guard, even more so because when it was posed as a direct question, he had no answer.

“Do you?”

Luckily for him, this was Alec, and they might still be figuring each other and themselves out in the aftermath of everything, but even their separation had not made Alec insecure about all this.

“You tell me,” he said as he sat down next to Magnus. “It’s your home.”

It might have sounded harsh if it wasn’t for the hand Alec placed on his knee.

Alec spoke before Magnus could. “I didn’t really think much about it, before. I loved being here and you seemed happy to have me, and obviously the Institute isn’t really a good place for privacy or, anything but work, really, so it seemed obvious. But after our fight, I- I slept at the Institute, and it just felt... off. Like it was an unusual, temporary thing. It made me realise that there was a place that did feel like home, and it wasn’t there.”

He had no idea what to say, but his hand found its way to sit on top of Alec’s.

“I- didn’t really think much about it, either,” he finally managed to get out. “You’ve always been so self-assured of your place in my life. And with good reason,” he added more for his own benefit than for Alec’s. “I was happy you felt so comfortable in my home, and I suppose with time I simply came to assume your presence. My home felt off without you, too.” He pursed his lips, unwilling to look Alec in the eye. “I didn’t think how it would make you feel, to not be able to come to _your_ home freely.”

“Hey.” Alec turned his hand around to hold Magnus’s, and Magnus met his gaze. “This is more than a home, it’s also your place of work. It’s _you_ in the minds of every downworlder and shadowhunter in New York. Even if I officially lived here, before, I’d have slept at the Institute, that’s just- It’s what makes sense. If we fought again and I stormed out, that’s where I’d go.”

The smile came unbidden. “Don’t be so quick to assume you’d be the one to storm off, Alexander. I have property all around the world, who’s to say I wouldn’t go to Seoul or Paris to calm down for a few days?”

Alec smiled back. “Then I would find comfort in the fact that you’d eventually come home to me.”

Magnus felt his smile give way to seriousness again.

“So you do?” he asked. “Live here. Because I’d love you to.”

Alec looked him straight in the eye. “Then I do.”

Magnus wanted to just lean in and kiss him, but he had to ask. “And what about what that’ll tell every downworlder and shadowhunter in New York?”

“It’ll tell them I’m with you,” Alec said, and it sounded like a vow. “In every sense that matters.”

If it was a vow, it was one Magnus was more than willing to seal with a kiss, so he did. But it was not just a solemn vow with political implications, it was also a new step in their relationship, just for them.

Magnus rested his face against Alec’s, his goatee probably leaving an imprint on Alec’s cheek.

“I love you.”

Alec squeezed his hand. “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies for the Pandemonium erasure re: places associated with Magnus.
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/forgetmequite)!


End file.
